


The Cure for Homesickness

by Duckseamail



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, a bit of humor, card tricks, first night of summer, idk why but it felt right for Stan to do 'magic', warm milk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23990872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duckseamail/pseuds/Duckseamail
Summary: It's the first night of the summer and Mabel doesnotwant to be sad right now. Luckily Grunkle Stan isn't quite as scary as he wants the kids to think. Obviously the cure for homesickness is warm milk and...card tricks?
Relationships: Mabel Pines & Grunkle Stan | Stanley "Stanford" Pines
Comments: 7
Kudos: 66





	The Cure for Homesickness

“Goodnight Grunkle Stan.”

“G’Night.”

Mabel looks over at Dipper. He smiles a little and turns to go up to the attic. Mabel glances once more at her strange and cranky Grunkle Stan. He’s sitting in the recliner, and watching the TV, completely ignoring her and Dipper after he said goodnight to them.

Mabel isn’t quite sure what she thinks of him yet. She and Dipper had only seen him one other time in their lives when they were about five, and she doesn’t remember anything except a vague familiarity in the sound of his scratchy voice. What she knows for certain is that she is so excited to sleep in an attic! It has splinters, a cool window, and maybe tomorrow she can convince Dipper to let the goat sleep in the room with them!

She turns away from her uncle and dashes up the stairs. She runs into the bathroom where Dipper is brushing his teeth.

“Hey Dips!” Mabel grabs her toothbrush and squirts a whole lotta toothpaste onto it. “Do you know what I’m excited about for tomorrow?”

“No, wha ith ih?” He’s speaking through a mouthful of toothpaste, so she put her toothbrush in her mouth so they can have double the toothpaste-y fun!

“We’hre gonna haf jopths! Pleh!” Mabel spits into the sink so that she can be happy more audibly. “Grunkle Stan said that we would work in the gift shop! Isn’t that the coolest? I bet there will be soooo many people to meet! And they’ll be tourists! That’s even better.” She says in an intense whisper. “Also, there will probably be lots of cute boys. I’m not sure about that though, ‘cause when I asked, Grunkle Stan just grunted, but I think I’m gonna take that as a ‘Yes Mabel, there are so many cute boys that would be dying to date you, you are a CATCH.’” she screams that last part, for emphasis.

“KIDS! BE QUIET!”

Dipper quickly spits in the sink and exchanges a look with Mabel. Oh this summer is off to a great start already, and it’s only gonna get better, she can feel it.

<~>

In the attic bedroom, she picks a few stuffed animals from her bags, and sets them on the bed. Tomorrow she’ll rotate them out so that no one is left out, because they are _all_ her favorites. (And it’s nobody’s business if Miss Rabbit-Bouncington is on the rotation for every single night…)

“Is there even room for you to sleep in the bed?” 

Mabel looks over her shoulder and sees Dipper already under the covers in his otherwise empty bed. His eyebrows are raised.

“Pbbbt, _yes_. Also, you still can’t raise one eyebrow.” She quickly searches the animals in her bag and throws a small, glittery dolphin at Dipper’s face.

“Really?” Dipper whines. “But I’ve been practicing!”

“Well, you’ll just need to practice more tomorrow bro-bro, because you just look all surprised and stuff, and I’m preeeeeetty sure that isn’t what you’re going for.” 

Dipper retaliates by throwing the dolphin back onto Mabel's bed. The more the merrier! When she looks at the bed though, she frowns a bit. Dipper is about to be proven right, because there mayyyy be a few too many stuffed animals to avoid knocking some off. She carefully gets into bed, and snuggles under the blankets. Lorry the stuffed cat falls in between the wall and the bed. Drat. She watches Dipper lean over to the little table with the lamp in between the two beds, and with a quiet click, darkness covers the room.

“Goodnight Mabel, see you in the morning.”

“Night-night!” Mabel lays back on her pillow, closes her eyes, and waits to fall asleep. Tomorrow will be their first full day in Gravity Falls. She knows that most of the day will be spent in the gift shop of the Mystery Shack, and she’s ready to be the best employee Grunkle Stan’s ever had, and then she’ll start writing her first letter home. One of her bags is entirely dedicated to arts and crafts supplies and yarn just in case those things are hard to find in Gravity Falls. The reason she is going to write letters isn’t just because she can express her artistic talent, it’s also because she and Dipper don’t have phones. Their parents say they can only have cell phones when they’re in high school, and Grunkle Stan had told them first thing that the phone bill is expensive, so only call home if it’s absolutely necessary. 

Mabel’s cool with that. She’s looking forward to writing letters! Dipper brought his video camera too, so maybe he’ll let her use it to make videos to send home. She’ll ask in the morning. Right now, she should probably actually try to sleep.

Sleep. Sleep sleep sleep sleep. Sleep.

“Hmmm hm hm hmmmm. Bah dah hmm ba zam. La bah dop dop die dop. Hmmm hm hmmm-”

“ _Mabel!_ Shush!”

“Sorry.”

Mabel rolls over in her bed, and looks at the wall. It’s really quiet in the attic. She lies still for what she thinks is 10 minutes, but her eyes are still open. Whenever she or Dipper couldn’t sleep at home, Dad would come sit in their room and tell a story. He’s really good at making up stories, or sometimes Dipper asks him to read from a book he’d gotten from the library. Sometimes, Mom came to listen to the story, and when she did this she always brought Dipper and Mabel warm cups of milk.

Warm milk is probably the best thing for sleep in the history of the world. Warm milk, and a story…

Mabel turns over again to look at Dipper, but the room is so dark that she can’t see him. Her breathing speeds up. It’s ok Mabel, she tells herself. Just because you can’t see past your hands, and there’s creaking coming from the corner that wasn’t there earlier, it doesn’t mean a monster will eat you. Monsters aren’t real anyway, only pretty things like unicorns and fairies exist, probably.

This blanket smells nice, she notices when she pulls it up over her head.

Mabel’s eyes sting and tears slowly start welling up in her eyes. She sniffles, and wipes at her face. Dipper is just across the room, just like at home. But unlike at home, there aren’t the noises of her parents talking quietly downstairs or doing the dishes, or opening the bedroom door a bit to check on Mabel and see if she’s actually asleep.

Mom and Dad are a whole state away. She tries to take a deep breath, but her nose is stuffed up, and tears are sliding down her face like they’re in a race to see which one drips off her chin first. She covers her mouth so that she won’t wake Dipper up, and shuts her eyes tight. Maybe, if she just pretends to be in her own bed at home, she’ll fall asleep and not be sad anymore.

Ok, the bed at home has stuffed animals, just like the bed she’s in now. Her blankets at home are really fluffy. The one on top of her now is soft, but not fluffy. At home, the bedroom is painted a soft green color. 

Mabel opens her eyes and peeks out into the room. There’s nothing but darkness. Her breath hitches, and she slowly sits up in bed. Ever so carefully, she swings her feet over onto the floor and stands up. She listens to Dipper’s breathing, and it’s still even, so she pulls the blanket off of her bed, and wraps it around herself like a cape.

When they’d been getting settled earlier she put her bags at the foot of the bed and planned to unpack in the morning. Mabel’s glad that she hadn’t put everything away like Dipper did, because now she’s able to walk over in the pitch blackness and fumble through the bag for the sweater she’d worn earlier. 

She hugs the soft material to her face, and takes a deep breath in. If she concentrates hard enough, it smells like home.

The door creaks a bit when Mabel pushes it open, and the stairs sound thunderous on her way down. At the bottom, she looks back up but doesn’t hear anything that sounds like her brother waking up. 

When she passes Grunkle Stan’s room, she stops again and looks under the door. The light is off. Mabel breathes a stuffy sigh of relief and wipes at her tears again. She continues into the room with the TV, where her uncle had been earlier in the evening. It’s empty, so she shuffles up to the chair and pulls the sweater she’s holding over her head.

Sweater Town is the most comforting place Mabel can think of at a time like this. It feels like a hug, and it’s safe from the outside world. And her crying is muffled by the wool which is a (kind of sad) bonus.

She isn’t sure how long she’s been sitting in the recliner and sobbing, but it must have been long enough for Grunkle Stan to wake up to get some water or something because she hears footsteps in the hall.

She holds her breath and really hopes he doesn’t see her and will walk past.

“Mabel?”

She tries to say something like ‘Hi Grunkle Stan, I got up to make a midnight taco and ended up getting some hot sauce in my eyes but now it’s all better so I’ll go back to bed!’ but all that comes out is another sob. Nuts.

“So...what’s wrong?” Grunkle Stan’s voice sounds closer. It takes her a minute to collect herself well enough to speak. She doesn’t _want_ to admit she isn’t happy, but she does want to be honest.

“Um. I…I just, um. I miss my Mom and Dad…” Mabel peeks out of the top of her sweater and rubs at her eyes. She has a bit of a headache, but she’s kind of glad Grunkle Stan found her. 

A hand stretches out to her, open and inviting.

“Do you want some hot chocolate?” asks Grunkle Stan.

“Do you think I could have warm milk instead?”

“Sure.” Her Grunkle isn’t smiling when he says this, but his voice is quiet and comforting anyway. Mabel takes his hand, and scoots out of the chair. She stands up, and pulls her sweater down so that she’s wearing it normally. Grunkle Stan hands her a tissue to wipe her nose, and they walk over to the little kitchen.

“Now, I know I’m not your Mom and Pop, but is there stuff they do to help you sleep? I could give it the ol’ one-two if you like.”

Mabel thinks about it while she gets a mug from the shelf. It’s really nice of Grunkle Stan to say that. She smiles a bit, and watches him get the milk out of the rumbling refrigerator.

“My dad tells a story and tucks me into bed sometimes. And Mom gives really nice goodnight hugs.”

“I don’t know any stories, so you’re outta luck there. Would card tricks put you to sleep? Do kids even know about card tricks anymore?” Grunkle Stan says gruffly and pours the milk into the mug Mabel is holding. “Here, lemme put that in the microwave for ya.”

“Two minutes is how long Mom does it.”

“Ok.”

The microwave hums and Mabel watches it spin around and around and around. Then all of a sudden there’s a beep and Grunkle Stan is opening the little door.

“Here you go, Popkin.”

She walks to the stairs up to the attic, sipping carefully at her drink. The dark isn’t as scary with the sound of Grunkle Stan’s footsteps protecting her, and the warmth from the milk is making her drowsy.

In the attic, both Mabel and Grunkle Stan are careful not to make too much noise. Waking up Dipper might not have any immediate repercussions, but sometimes if he gets tired enough, he’ll start eating his shirt. 

Mabel takes another sip of the milk and places the mug on the table with the lamp. She gets in bed, and Grunkle Stan sits down next to her. He turns to the little side table, and quietly opens the drawer. He pulls out a deck of cards and Mabel feels excitement trickle through her. Even if Grunkle Stan is basically a professional conman, magic is _always_ cool.

“Here we go,” he whispers. He flips over the top card in the deck. It’s a red ace. Mabel likes Jack’s better, ‘cause they’re the only card with a name. “I’m gonna make this card change, only by shaking it.” 

He picks up the ace, and Mabel follows his hand closely with her eyes. Grunkle Stan starts shaking the card, and then all of a sudden, the ace is gone and in its place is the Queen of Spades. Stan puts his hands back together and hands her the card to examine. Mabel flips it over, but there isn’t anything there. She carefully brings her nail to the edge of the card and pokes it to see if two cards are taped together. They aren’t. 

“Wow,” she exhales, “do a couple more, please please please?” Grunkle Stan crinkles his face at her in a scowl she can tell is totally phony, and shuffles the cards.

“I’ll make this card rub into the bed, how’s that for magic?”

Mabel bounces a bit and clutches a stuffed animal in her arms.

Grunkle Stan takes the top card again and presses it into the bed next to her. He rubs it quickly across the blanket, and Mabel waits eagerly for it to disappear, but it stays under her Grunkle’s hand, clear as day (well, as clear as anything can be in the dark).

“Huh. Must be losing my touch. Hold on sweetie, I’ll give it one more try.”

She crosses her fingers and hopes that it works this time. It’d be so cool to have a card floating around in her bed for the rest of the summer.

Again, Grunkle Stan swipes his hand across the deck and rubs it into the bed. Mabel can hardly breathe, because the card is gone. She reaches out and grabs his hand, bringing it close to her face. “Wow Grunkle Stan, that was awesome!” It’s hard to show her excitement for her Grunkle’s talent when they both have to try and not wake up Dipper.

“I think that’s enough magic for tonight. Do ya think you can sleep now?”

Mabel answers by launching herself forwards and wrapping him in a tight hug. Grunkle Stan’s chin is scratchy against her head, but after a second's hesitation, he wraps his arms around her and keeps her in a warm and safe embrace. It isn’t quite the same as her mom’s hugs -obviously Grunkle Stan isn’t her mom- but it comforts her and makes Gravity Falls feel like it can be her home for a couple of months. 

Grunkle Stan pulls back after a couple more seconds, and Mabel lays down in her bed. She pulls the covers up around her shoulders and stuffed animals, and whispers “Good Night” to Grunkle Stan.

He brushes a hand gently over her forehead, and smiles at her. Mable watches him walk across the floor, and he leaves the door open a crack, so she can hear him walk to his own room. Now she can close her eyes, and be ready for an adventure with her family in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I feel like the ending is a little shakey, but overall, I'm really proud of this being my first foray into the world of writing Gravity Falls fanfic!
> 
> [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjLLPe5ZhFo)'s the link for the video I watched about card tricks if anyone is interested. It's pretty cool!


End file.
